In fact, Lyudmila can think of only one defector whose assimilation has gone smoothly, without any headaches for her—a happy, contented Soviet citizen with his happy, contented family.
Almost as if he can read her mind, Burgess stubs out his cigarette and says, “By the by, how’s Digby coming along?”
Lyudmila gives him a hard stare. “HAMPTON,” she says, with emphasis, “has been a model citizen. He and his family are now living in Moscow. He serves us as an academic and adviser on matters of international affairs.”
“Given up the booze, has he? That’s what I hear.”
“Where do you hear this?”
He shrugs as he lights another cigarette. “Here and there. Well, that’s fine news. He and I were chums for a moment or two, back in London. Good chap, for an American. Wife’s a trifle uptight for my taste, but the children were charming.”
“Yes.” Lyudmila checks her watch. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Comrade Burgess, I’m afraid I have other demands on my time this afternoon. My colleagues will arrive shortly to continue the debriefing.”
Burgess props the cigarette in the ashtray and stands to shake hands. He is, after all, an English gentleman.
Lyudmila makes her way to her afternoon appointment, which is of such long standing that she doesn’t have to think about her route as she navigates the Moscow streets. She thinks instead about Burgess—so pleased with himself, so delighted to have created such an international ruckus. The world’s press is in the middle of an apoplexy right now over the missing English diplomats, and Burgess is enjoying every moment.
Still, for all his faults, Burgess has always been loyal. More mercenary than the others, to be sure, but only because he has expensive tastes and a Foreign Office salary. He’s provided a wealth of priceless information over the years. Not once has any of that information proved false. Nor did he display so much as a hint of the classic signs of deception, throughout the course of the interview.
Lyudmila has to conclude—provisionally, at least—that he doesn’t know anything about the ASCOT operation, including its existence.
Which only goes to support her hypothesis. This operation, after all, seems to have as its objective the systematic exposure of Soviet moles burrowed within the most secret inner corridors of Western intelligence—all those Burgesses and Macleans and Philbys and Hisses, so carefully recruited and managed over years and even decades.
It stands to reason, therefore, that it’s being conducted from outside the formal intelligence service, by some renegade officer or officers who—like her—have finally learned to trust nobody.
A man code-named ASCOT.
And the agent whom ASCOT has boldly sent into Moscow, into the heart of the Soviet state, to uncover the traitors, one by one.
Ruth
June 1952
New York City
From the perspective of my desk, parked outside the deluxe private office of our president and chief executive officer, Mr. Herbert Henry Hudson, you can see just about everything that goes on within the premises of the world-famous Hudson Modeling Agency.
This is no coincidence, believe me. I like to keep an eye on everything, always have.
On the day Sumner Fox walks past the glass double doors—an ordinary hot afternoon in late June, a steady stream of fresh new-mint high school graduates eager to commence their modeling careers, God bless them—I’ve been running the agency for about four years, depending on your definition of the term, and I have no intention of going anywhere. I like my job. I like my way of life, more or less. I wear my usual uniform of white button-down shirt and black gabardine slacks, hair pulled back in a neat gold knot, red lipstick and nothing else. I prop my feet on my desk and drink my seventh cup of strong black coffee while I flip through the portfolio of some vampy fifteen-year-old from Elizabeth, New Jersey—claims eighteen, the pretty liar, but I’m a better judge of age than a horse trader—and God knows I have no time at all for the bull-shouldered fellow who stands at the reception desk like a heavyweight boxer who’s taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque.
My telephone rings. Reception.
I direct an eyebrow of disapproval toward Miss Simmons from above the frame of my reading glasses. She shrugs and tilts her head toward the beef standing in front of her desk.
I lift the receiver. “Macallister.”
“Miss Macallister, Mr. Sumner Fox from the FBI is here to see you.” She says FBI in a hushed, secret voice, enunciating each letter separately.
I open my mouth to tell Miss Simmons to tell the so-called FBI to get lost, but she tacks on another sentence before I get the words out.